Season 11, Episode 2 March 9, 2025

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is the listening tube.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, we'll hear about a Mexican standoff. And I'll have a chat with a young man who will share his insight of education in America.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

But first, not the headlines.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

One of my listeners recently asked if I was still a centrist. I am still an independent, but the left has pushed me away from the center. I will now consider myself a conservative Pennsylvanian. Read into that what you will. When used properly and responsibly, they're a good thing, and our right to have them is protected by the Constitution. But when they end up in the wrong hands, guns create what can't be uncreated. That's why the government of Mexico wants to sue American gun makers for the violence that helps drug cartels maintain their dominance. Not all of the guns they use are made in the USA, but a CBS story says half of all guns collected at crime scenes are American made. That makes me wonder who's leaving their guns behind at the scene of a crime. Anyway, Mexico claims that American gun manufacturers are aiding and abetting illegal sales of guns to people who then pass them on to the cartels in Mexico. Ironic, isn't it, that America is supplying the weapons, well, half of them, to the drug cartels that the U.S. government just deemed foreign terrorist organizations? Well, it wouldn't be the first time the U.S. got bit in the ass by weapon sales now, would it? But is it right for Mexico to blame the makers of the tool instead of the users of the tool?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Similar, but different.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

That's one of the considerations about which the Supreme Court of the United States just heard some arguments. They're trying to decide if Mexico can even sue the gunmakers in the first place. There's no guarantee they'll win, even if the lawsuit is allowed to move forward. You see, there are other companies in America that make products that can be misused, and it's assumed that they will be by a small percent of the people who buy the product. If the gun lawsuit is allowed to go on, it may open up a can of worms we can't predict. Some would say that's a small price to pay to keep guns out of the hands of drug cartels. That's why it's in the hands of the Supreme Court. But proving American gun manufacturers are helping the cartels get the guns will be a tough sell. So tough that this lawsuit is still pending after being filed in 2021. Mexico seeks ten billion dollars, I'm assuming American dollars as Mexican currency is worth far less, in damages from seven U.S. gun makers and one wholesaler. Those of us in the United States might wonder, well, don't average citizens in Mexico have guns too? Well, no. The story points out that there is only one gun store in all of Mexico and has strict laws about guns. But what matters here is American law. American gun makers have some protections when it comes to being sued when their products are used irresponsibly. But if Mexico can prove the gun manufacturers broke the law while selling their guns, then they could circumvent those protections. But the wheels of justice turn slowly, and all that's happened so far is that a lower court dismissed the accusations against all but two of the defendants. One maker, Smith and Wesson, and one wholesaler, Interstate Arms. Both defendants claim the unlawful part of the transactions happen long after their part in the chain, closer to the street level, so to speak. But Mexico claims that the manufacturers are liable for every sale, legal and illegal, because it's common knowledge that a certain number of those guns will end up in the wrong hands and they don't do enough to stop it. Mexico further insists the gun makers know which of the distributors are doing the illegal deals, yet they keep on shipping them more guns. Not only that, but some gun makers are designing guns specifically for cartels with names like El Jeffre and Emiliano Zapata 1911, which has a Mexican revolutionary message engraved on it. And therein lies the rub. This is an international matter, not a domestic one. The Second Amendment doesn't apply here. Mexico doesn't have a Second Amendment. We're not talking about an American citizen's right to keep and bear arms. But the Supreme Court decision will either dismantle or reestablish the limits of what American gun manufacturers can or cannot do and how they might be held responsible for their behavior. So there are two aspects at play here. One, are gunmakers responsible for the behavior of a relatively small number of people who use guns? And two, are the gunmakers breaking the law by being a willing partner in the illegal trade of weapons they make? So, other than sue American gunmakers, what can Mexico do to stem the flow of illegal weapons into the country? Well, if the cartels have infiltrated the Mexican government to the extent we're led to believe, that would logically mean that the Mexican government has also infiltrated the cartels. So if the government of Mexico wants to prevent the cartels from getting the weapons, the government should put a 100% tariff on any gun imported into Mexico from the United States. The Mexican government obviously knows who's buying them. That will force the cartels, at least the ones that spend their money wisely, to buy their guns from the countries that make up the other half of gun purchases in Mexico. Squeeze the American gun makers out of the market. Use tariffs as a tool to halt the flow of weapons into the country. Hell, make it a 200% tariff. If that doesn't prevent the Mexican drug cartels from maintaining their grip on entire regions of the country, then maybe it wasn't the fault of American gunmakers in the first place. Besides, American gunmakers might not be Mexico's biggest problem moving forward. Ghost guns and 3D printed weapons will soon have more influence over the illegal trade of guns than the major manufacturers. This monumental shift on the supply side will prevent any single entity from being held responsible. What is yet to be determined is where these independent weapons makers will set up shop. America might not be the best option. The way I see it shaping up is if Mexico wants to hold others responsible for the gun violence there, it's going to turn into a game of whack-a-mole. Independent, illicit gun makers will simply move every time the situation heats up. And there won't be any label on the guns to connect a legitimate company to the production of the weapon. Unless, of course, the manufacturer has an ego and begins to trade credit for his work by labeling the weapons with some sort of trademark. When illegitimate guns are produced in bulk by illegitimate actors, legitimate gunmakers will see their customer base shrink to mostly law-abiding citizens. Unless Mexico is correct in their belief that America's gunmakers are actively breaking the law to get Mexican drug cartels to be their customers, that's what the United States Supreme Court will have to decide. Hold on, booth announcer lady. We don't have time for the history segment this week because my conversation with this week's guest ran a little long. I'll be back with that in a moment.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Send email to thelistening tube at outlook.com.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

My guest this week is a young man who's on a quest of learning. With all the talk this week about the Department of Education, I thought it might be interesting to get the perspective of an academic who's still in the system as a student. Matt Guerzinkovich spent some time in the listening tube and shared his thoughts about America's education system. I do have a question about your pseudonym. What predicated that? And and what's up with the uh the pan zeitgeist name?

SPEAKER_02 10:49

So my last name's Polish. Uh my my my family's from Chicago, and so pan is Polish for Mr. I was looking for a way, I was I was like maybe Mr. Zeitgeist, but then I just I had the idea, so I looked it up what Mr. was in Polish, and apparently it's just pan. And then Zeitgeist, I'm just really interested in like culture and society and like what's in the air right now, um, kind of the major changes in society, and so Zeitgeist, I just thought was a good name to use. So I put it together, panzeitgeist.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

All right. Well, if you want to stick with that, we'll stick with that. I will always uh think of you as Matthew Gerzinkovich.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Uh you can call me Matthew. That's that's completely fine. That's just what I like have on all my social media and stuff is panzeitgeist, but okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

We just want people to be able to find you if they're looking for you. Yeah. One of the reasons I was interested in speaking with you is because education on the federal level or the the uh the administration of education on the federal level is in a big is a big question right now. And you're uh you're an academic and still within that system. And now correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand, you started college at age 16.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Yeah, so um at 16 I was accepted to a STEM school in Kentucky, uh, an accelerated STEM school where you live on campus and take college courses. Um so I was living in a dorm, hanging out with people much older than I was, driving around in a town of about an hour and thirty minutes away from where I was from. It was a good experience, and I it it also was paid for basically all of all of my school, which is very helpful with the cost of cost of higher education these days.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Sure. And as a political science major, correct?

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yes. So now, so I I was always interested in politics, but when I went to the STEM school, and you know, STEM is science, technology, engineering, and math, it has nothing to do with politics. I've just decided to settle on something I'm at I I actually enjoy, and I'd like to talk about things and you know make a difference in the world in my own way.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And you are currently uh working on your master's degree, is that correct? Yes, so I'm currently at the University of Louisville. Have you made a conscious examination of America's education system? Are you even able to do that while you are still within it?

SPEAKER_02 13:27

I think the second question is kind of interesting. I mean, I know that uh Foucault, who is a philosopher, uh, and I'm not I'm I'm gonna butcher his philosophy, but he made the point that you can't really understand the time you're in while you're in it. You have to be a little bit outside of the time to understand that period. So I do think that it might be difficult for me to accurately examine the education system while or whilst within it. But I also think if I could just give my thoughts on it, because I mean I still have thoughts on it, uh the the American education system is quite a mess. Um I think common core has been has its pros and cons. I think that kind of holding a bunch of students to the same standard and not teaching them individually has a lot of issues. But to get into higher education, we put a lot of focus on university. And whilst I think that university is important in the fact that it provides people unique experiences, you get to meet people from totally different backgrounds from you, and you learn a lot, and it helps develop character. I think that we've made a massive blunder because we have so many people who aren't going into technical schools, who aren't going into trades, and we're seeing a lot of shortages in those industries. So there are positive and negatives to the American education system. I think it needs to be totally revamped, but I'm not in a position to do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

So now I graduated from high school in the last class before the creation of the Department of Education on the federal level. Was I lucky? Because I feel like I was lucky.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Um, you you might have been. What I I don't know what year that would have been. 1980. 1980. That's that's the year my mother was born, actually. Um uh that's that's crazy, it was made in 1980, but um yeah, I mean I don't really know much about the education system prior to 1980, but I know that my great-grandfather, uh, he's still alive, and he didn't get past eighth grade, and he's one of the smartest people I know. And this was back he was born in 1933, so that was a long time ago. And so you you you might be lucky. People keep on getting more stupid. Like we have the technology, we have everything in our pocket, we can know everything, but we're not really taught anything, at least from my experience. I mean, I'm having an experience from 200, you know, three is when I was born, so post that is when I've been in school. But it might have been better in the early time when there was a department of education, but at least since I've been alive, I don't think it's done very well.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Do you think that we should keep it, or do you think the current administration is on the right track as far as scaling it back or even eliminating it?

SPEAKER_02 16:39

I think it should be kept. I mean, I think education is important, and I think in a nation as uh interconnected as we have now, we have to have some federal some federal rules and regulations about education. But I do think that there should be a sledgehammer brought to it. I think that in order to fix something, especially that large, it at the federal government, it needs to be broken. And for better or worse, if Donald Trump destroys it, maybe there's a better chance to build something that's better out of it.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Well, we we may get the opportunity to find out. I'm not sure exactly where it's gonna go with uh with the new uh Secretary of Education, uh Linda McMahon, who uh I kind of spoofed a little bit uh a few episodes ago uh because of her her relationship with the uh the professional wrestling. Schools have always been, and maybe you don't know this, but um maybe I'll maybe I'll teach you something here. Schools have always been about indoctrination of some type. First, it was religion. The the first schools in the United States were Catholic schools. It wasn't until a few years later that public schools came along, and and then the the focus of the indoctrination got a different focus. Uh what's your experience with educational indoctrination and did you realize you were being indoctrinated at the time?

SPEAKER_02 18:16

So I think early in my school career in like elementary school and maybe into the beginning of middle school, I didn't think I was aware or I don't think I was aware of the indoctrination. And that goes from the indoctrination of like the teaching of American history, where they you know teach you about Thanksgiving being some peaceful time with these c uh colonists and the Native Americans, and they teach you these myths or myths that they don't really tell you are myths, they just kind of say as fact. Um, once I got into about mid-middle school, I'd say I'm different from my peers in this aspect. I was kind of aware of what we were being taught and how that didn't really align. The internet at that time, when I was on YouTube, it was early YouTube, and I was watching, you know, a lot of content about people talking about the indoctrination of school, talking about religion, talking about American history. Um, so I think I was maybe more aware of that. But I do know that I mean schools used to teach and kind of teach you to be to work in a factory. That's kind of what the modern school system is based off of. You know, you go to lunch at a bell, you you have 30 minutes to eat real quick, it's teaching you to be a worker. It's teaching like you know, like a worker ant. That's what you are. And it's but it also depends on the school. So there are the private schools that teach totally different than the way you're taught in many public schools. And it's indoctrinating people to fit a certain class dynamic. But personally, I I I was lucky enough to to realize that that you know, some people aren't.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

I kind of started to figure it out probably around tenth grade, I think. And uh, but it was because of a couple of really good teachers, uh, one in particular uh but now uh and and I always I always get a little bit of a uh a blowback when I say that schools are all about indoctrination, because a lot of people just simply don't believe that. And the only thing that I have to say is, did you did you recite the Pledge of Allegiance before every school day?

SPEAKER_02 20:28

If you look at say the Soviet Union back when it existed, and you you had some video of a classroom, and there are a bunch of students who were reciting, and I don't know if they had a pledge of allegiance or whatever their equivalent is, like pledging allegiance to Stalin or at the time and stuff, whatever. And you had a video of that, and those people felt probably thought nothing about it. But you show that in America and put like some creepy music over it and have someone talk after it, and they're like, Oh my god, that's horrible, that's indoctrination. And in the US, you do the same thing. I'm sure some in the Soviet Union they could show a bunch of Americans pledging allegiance to the flag with some background footage afterwards of like you know, industrial capitalism polluting the water and people like poor and using drugs in inner cities and you know, homelessness, and it's like it gives the same idea over there, and really that can be contribute like uh contributed to propaganda, but at the same time, it's the same kind of idea.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Well, I think we do consider it propaganda if it comes from a source other than what we already believe. Yeah, yeah. So I would say so. Yeah. School school is an interesting thing. It's probably a lot more interesting once you get out of it and start looking at it in hindsight than it was when you were actually a student. Now you're still going through that student part of it, so I'm just curious as to how much of that have you already recognized and And it seems like you've recognized quite a bit of it.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Again, from a young age, I was really interested in politics and I've always questioned authority. I mean, I question my parents probably more than I should have. I question what I was being taught. I learned things on my own. Um and I I I also have ADHD, which is a learning disability. And so a lot of the times I wasn't getting the right attention from my teachers. And so I learned outside of school. And I had a tutor who helped me, but I also just I'm I I love learning, but I just couldn't do it in school. So a lot of what I learned was outside of school, which I think helped me really see what's wrong with the schooling system and how it's indoctrinating and how it's just you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

I know when I was a kid, there was a lot about school that I didn't like, but have more appreciation for now. By the same token, there was a lot about it that I still have trouble justifying. Is the curriculum today the best way to spend our educational resources? Are we learning the things that really matter?

SPEAKER_02 23:15

I don't know if this is because I just barely paid attention, but I can recall going over nouns every year from middle school into like mid-high school. The same nouns. We were going over the same content, it feels like every single year. And in math, I mean algebra is helpful. I I do think algebra helps you in life because it teaches you how to use, you know, variables. But I don't feel like everyone needs to learn calculus. I don't think everybody needs to learn things like that. Um, if you go to a technical school and like you need it for that for that job, then you learn it there. If you need it in whatever job you're wanting to go to at university, then you learn it there. But I think we're spending a lot of time teaching people things that they don't really need in life. And I think it would have been fun to have a woodworking class in my high school, which we didn't have. I think it would have been fun for some people to have a um, I can't recall like like a homemaking, is that what the class was was called?

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Home economics. Home economies.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Home economics. Yeah. Yeah, like that that would be fun. Um, and then also when when they try to teach things that are I think are necessary in our in our country now and in our society, like Spanish. There are a lot of Spanish speakers, and I think that's a language that a lot of people should be able to learn. They teach it like they they don't teach you Spanish. Like you have Spanish classes, but you don't learn anything, and they teach it in the worst possible way. And I mean, I don't know how to teach it. I mean, I know barely any Spanish, but I think it could be structured a lot better, and we could be learning things that are actually useful to our lives. Well, me hablo poquito español. See, see, that's more than me.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

So now is is curriculum able to keep up with technology? That's the big question today. Are we forgetting some of the important basics in the endless quest to keep up with change?

SPEAKER_02 25:21

I don't really know because I I can recall being in school and they still told me I would never have like I wouldn't have a calculator in my pocket. And I was in school when after the iPhone came out. You know what I mean? Like we already had the calculator in our pocket. Sure. And so I mean, teaching people how to do, and then they also change change how you do the math. Like, it used to be a lot, like I I watched videos, and I heard older people say this, and I was like, you're just you're just making stuff up, you're just you're just old, and you don't apparently like you probably don't remember how they taught you math. But no, I watched videos of how people taught math, and it made so much more sense. Like, the the way they teach it is just confusing. Uh I I know it's a little bit off the topic of technology, but to go back to technology, I feel like they don't teach technological literacy, like how to really determine what is real and what is not real on the internet, what to believe and what not to believe. I think that could be an interesting class to teach, but I think that also gets into a fine line of like, is the government telling you this is not true when there might be truth to it? Is the government telling you like, you know, you have to look for the Facebook verification of fact-checking before you believe it? And Facebook is, you know, in cahoots with the government about saying what's true and what's not. I mean, so there's a fine line, but I I I do think t technological literacy isn't really taught in schools and it should be.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Well, there is a lot of subjectivity involved in deciding what the truth is today, because yeah, it can be true to one person, and and yeah, there and that's one of the reasons I started this podcast because of the because of the confusion between what we're being told and and how we're being told. Because we're we're often being told the truth, but we're being told it in a way that's meant to manipulate us more than inform us.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Yeah, yeah. It it's I believe it's been called that we're in the post-truth era. Uh, truth is really subjective. And I don't know if we want to get too much into other politics, but I think it has a lot to do with the failures of neoliberalism, um, the failures of the United States after the Great Recession, and it's kind of destroyed a lot of people's it that destroyed a lot of people's livelihoods, and they bailed out all these companies, and Americans don't really feel the government does anything for them, and so they don't believe these mainstream institutions which have we've believed for decades. And so now truth is whatever someone else, like all these so many different people with the internet can say whatever they want, and humans cherry pick. I mean, naturally, like whether you're trying to or not, you'll see something that you already agree with, and you'll be you'll feel good. You'll you'll you'll get endorphins in your body, and you'll you'll get dopamine, and you like that. And so truth is very I think truth will eventually become more objective in time, but right now I think we're just in a in an in-between.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Now, politics certainly does play a role in our education systems. What can government or aka politics do to improve education? And probably more importantly, at what level of government can we make the most difference and have the most positive impact?

SPEAKER_02 29:14

For your everyday person, simply going to your um to your school board. Yeah, your your your local school board. Go to your local school board, sit in it on a meeting, and talk if they have a if they have a chance, express your thoughts, express your opinions. I mean, don't just go there unprepared. I mean, you should at least read a little bit about you know things in your in your district, read about things that you might be able to push for. Uh, but go go there and pay attention to the candidates and the the the people who hold those offices and vote them out if you don't like them or vote for them if you do. Uh run for office. That's that's important. But I think what has a a lot of impact just because of the current setup of things is the federal government. And I think that there need does need to be massive reform to the Department of Education about what we learn um and also funding. So a major thing that impacts educational standards of the United States is the funds that schools get are based off property taxes, and so poorer communities pay less in property taxes because their property is simply worth less. So those schools get less money. And yes, there is some funding from the federal government that does come that kind of adds funds on top of that to certain schools, but I think the that that entire system needs to be revamped. And that's something that you can do at the federal level, that's something that your member of Congress or your senator can do. And simply calling them, reaching out to them, it doesn't always help. But if you get you and a bunch of your buddies and you post something on Facebook or Instagram, and you get a bunch of people contacting them or their office, they're bound to at least hear it out. And so that's something that people can do.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

I think it's interesting that you you started out answering the question at the local level, and then you jump straight to the federal level, which is you know the Department of Education. But what we haven't really addressed there is education at the state level, which is probably where all the emphasis should be. So, because I know that it's part of the Trump administration's agenda is to move most of the education back to the control of the states. Why is it that we forget that the states probably have more control over our education systems than the local or the federal level?

SPEAKER_02 32:00

It might just be because we don't really talk about state governments that much. Like most people don't even pay attention. I'd say we just don't really think about it a lot because most people don't pay attention, they're not civically engaged, and we uh they only think about politics every four years, or whenever somebody says something that they think is outrageous and they just hear it and respond to it. But most people aren't really thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

I think it may be a byproduct of the fact that we have a federal department of education now that everybody everybody kind of relinquished the state level control to the federal level and even and forgot about the local level entirely, even though that's probably where a lot of the power lies.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

I think it has positives and negatives. I mean, I do think that people should get involved at the state level, and but I also struggle with just allowing states to decide what to teach, because I worry about certain states teaching that same indoctrinating ideology that you know we talked about earlier. I worry about states teaching, like completely leaving out the history of slave rebellions and the history of black Americans' impact on this country and helping to really build this country. I worry about leaving out the history of uh the gay rights movement even going back into the 70s and 60s. I worry about people not really teaching these things and having a new generation of people who are just as uneducated about the history of struggle for equality in America, which is really, you know, we were founded as a more perfect union. We we are continually getting more perfect, we are getting better, and teach not teaching our improvements leads us to kind of have those same beliefs in the past that we improved from.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Certainly, history is an important part of the curriculum, as they say, those who forget history are destined to repeat it. Yes. I like critical thinking. I think we should teach more of that. I once challenged my seventh grade English teacher, Mrs. Zelinsky, to write a sentence on the chalkboard. Do they still have chalkboards in school?

SPEAKER_02 34:26

So funny enough, I had never seen a chalkboard in a school who for what I can remember until I was in university. They have chalkboards in some of the old university buildings, and professors use them. But at school, no, it was just it was just a uh whiteboard with the dry erase marker. Or in that was in my public school. I I went to some fancier schools for um academic team, and they had the smart boards, and I thought that was cool. And it's like uh it's like a big screen that they can write on and put stuff on with their like finger, and I thought that was pretty cool, but no, they don't really have whiteboards anymore for or uh chalkboards anymore, from what I saw.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Okay, we actually called them blackboards when I was very young, but at some point they became chalkboards. Anyway, I asked Mrs. Zalinsky to write the sentence there are three twos in the English language. As Mrs. Z and the rest of the class began to realize it's impossible to write that phrase. I earned some respect and and gained a little confidence as well. My favorite teacher, Mr. Bartle, taught me how to think for myself instead of blindly believing what we're told. Is any of that still being taught in school?

SPEAKER_02 35:57

I mean, not really. I mean, we're kind of just taught, you know, this is what it is, whether that's in history, whether that's in math, whether that's in in science, uh English, and we just recite that information to a t to a test. And we just have to remember it for that segment of the class long enough to pass that test. And then once you pass that test, it's like one in it's like in one ear and out the other. You don't really remember it, you don't retain that information. And I think it is kind of just teaching people, and I agree with your point, that, or at least the point I think you're trying to make, which is that people don't really think for themselves, and they kind of just take whatever is told to them as the truth. And I've dealt with a lot of people who are older than me who just believe whatever they see on on CNN or on MSNBC or on Fox News, and they don't ever think critically about that information.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Well, that that's kind of their loss, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Yeah. I I I I think it is, yeah. But it's also America's loss.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

It is, and and I and it's a it's a direct reflection of I think of the educational system in place in our country today. Yeah. So what can we do to improve it?

SPEAKER_02 37:25

I think the first step is to completely reorganize and rebuild the Department of Education at the federal level. But that's a lot easier said than done. I could list what policies would need to be changed, but I think the core of the issue, and this is a little bit off topic, but yes, I still think it's the core of the issue, is money and politics. The the real critical thinkers of the time challenging the status quo and changing the country for the better. And I think that would be a good first step, is kind of just rebuilding it from the bottom up.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

A hearty thank you to Matt for spending some time in the listening tube. You can follow him by searching Panzeitgeist on various faces like Instagram and YouTube. I enjoyed my conversation with him and found it insightful. I hope you did too. The listening tube is written and produced by yours truly, copyright 2025. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. Support the show or text me from the homepage. Tune in next week when I'll talk to another podcaster. What could go wrong? I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for Thou at Infinitum.